MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF FORENSIC SCIENCE IN HISTORICAL STUDY: ST. FORTUNATO OF SERRACAPRIOLA (ITALY)

In this paper we discuss the case of St. Fortunato, who lived in Rome in the 3rd century AD. Although no historical references are made to Saint Fortunato’s martyrdom, his death is dates back to the persecution of Christians under Maximinus Thrax, the Roman Emperor from 235 AD. In 1761 Saint Fortunato was hailed patron "minus principalis" of Serracapriola, a small town in the surroundings of Foggia (Puglia region), and in 2010 (250 years later), his remains were exhumed by mandate of the clergy, for a complete forensic analysis. To the best of our knowledge, it is rare that such a forensic multidisciplinary approach is applied to the study of ancient sacred human skeletal remains, since finding data not consistent with St. Fortunato's life, might question the believers' faith. All bones were cleansed from mud, and classified according to anatomical topography. A detailed description of bone status was performed and osteological measurements taken. Total body CR (Axiom Iconos, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany) and MDCT (Aquilion 64, Toshiba Medical Systems, Toch- igi, Japan) studies were performed. The bones of human skeletal remains were anatomically placed on the scan table for easier radiological interpretation and scanned with specific bone filtering in order to determine sex, age, stature, and any pathology. Radiological data was consistent with a young male skeleton, 153-165 cm tall, with no signs of pathological or traumatic findings. Permission was granted for a piece of bone (7g of femur) to be analyzed with radiocarbon method. Ages are conventionally reported together with the standard deviation of the laboratory 14C measurement. The result was 230AD (95.4%), compatible with Saint Fortunato’s death. A complete genetic analysis was performed in order to genotype the bony samples. Forensic methodologies were therefore applied in this study, because ancient DNA is often problematic to study given its inherent nature. In ancient skeletal remains, the quantitative and qualitative differences in results can be attributed to the environmental factors or to the storage conditions. In addition, when dealing with religious relics, one is often limited to investigate a small sample. Previous protocols were slightly amended in order to improve the DNA quality and minimize the need for the use of expensive equipment and chemicals, yet still ensuring a technique compliant with those adhered to by molecular biology laboratories. A complete STR panel was obtained using a low initial concentration of extracted DNA. In accordance with radiological analysis, this data confirmed that the skeletal remains analyzed belonged to a European male rather than one of a different ethnicity. Although STR profiling is preferred due to its discriminatory power, Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis is often utilized in these cases. We performed mtDNA analysis with the “mini-primer set” (MPS) amplification strategy. This analysis is very difficult for many reasons, so we followed guidelines previously described by Melton et al., Budowle et al. and Butler. The profile, in terms of Differences from Anderson (i.e. the Cambridge Reference Sequence [CRS]), was compared with databases to determine haplotype frequency. These analysis confirm that skeletal remains belong to a European man rather than one of a different ethnicity. Using multidisciplinary forensic recovery methods, the lines of evidence used toward the identification were: (1) radiological investigations for preliminary information; (2) radiocarbon analysis for dating of skeletal remains; (3) biological profile of the remains (STRs and mtDNA); and (4) statistical analysis of genetic data. In conclusion, despite the inability to perform a DNA matching test, this study demonstrates the relevance of a multidisciplinary approach which significantly helped in gathering a variety of information consistent with the historical findings by analysts on the life of the saint. There is a strong scientific concordance between these findings and the époque of the saint’s existence, sex, and ethnicity.